N.H. Dem fight draws party warning

The increasingly negative 2nd District primary fight between New Hampshire Democrats Ann McLane Kuster and Katrina Swett has drawn a warning from the state’s party leader.

With Kuster and Swett engaged in a fierce war of words over everything from abortion to gay marriage to tax cuts, state Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley took to the liberal Blue Hampshire blog last week to warn that both candidates could wind up battered and bruised before a competitive general election race against likely GOP nominee former Rep. Charlie Bass.

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“Feel free in joining me in trying to tamper down any harsh attacks by the campaigns themselves by privately communicating to your candidate that it is important to keep our eyes on the prize of beating Charlie Bass!” Buckley wrote. “The only way Charlie Bass can win in November is if our primary nominates a wounded candidate. Let's not let that happen, let's all be together on Wednesday, September 15th and right through to November!!”

Buckley told POLITICO his blog post could be considered “preventative medicine,” noting, “It’s always easier to put out a small fire than a forest fire.”

“It’s always important to keep everyone focused, that the primary doesn’t mean anything if we can’t win the general,” said Buckley.

Buckley’s post came as Swett, who ran for the seat in 2002 and who is the wife of former Rep. Dick Swett, challenged Kuster, an attorney who has emerged as the favorite of party activists in the state, to detail her career as a lobbyist, and asked whether she was “proud” of her work for the pharmaceutical industry.

This week, Kuster’s campaign pounded back, saying, “Katrina Swett supported George Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and now she needs to answer for it.”

The fighting shows no sign of ending, with Coffman telling POLITICO Thursday that the Swett campaign intended to have a “dialogue” with voters about Kuster’s record ahead of the September primary.

“The National Republican Congressional Committee is going to make her lobbying record an issue. I don’t want to kid ourselves. That is a reality,” said Coffman, who added that Swett would support Kuster in the general election if she was the nominee.

Coffman confirmed that the campaign had bought TV airtime on New Hampshire TV station WMUR beginning in late August, but declined to specify whether the ads would be negative.

Kuster campaign spokesman Neil Sroka, meanwhile, signaled that the campaign would continue to portray Swett as too conservative for primary voters in the North Country district.

"Katrina Swett chose to make this a negative race because she was losing, and because the voters of the district disagree with her on all the big issues — like her support for the Bush tax cuts, the Iraq war and restrictions on a woman's right to choose,” he said. “She didn't have anywhere else to go except go negative."

The winner of the primary will face the winner of the GOP primary pitting Bass, who served six terms before losing his seat to now-Rep. Paul Hodes, against radio talk show host Jennifer Horn.

Kuster and Swett have far outpaced the Republican contenders in their fundraising efforts. At the end of June, Swett had $1.1 million in her bank account, with Kuster at $745,000 and Bass at $370,000. Horn had just $31,000.